Stereotypes as a Propaganda Tool Essay - 1240 Words

Stereotypes as a Propaganda Tool Stereotypes as a Propaganda Tool As Americans go through a post-traumatic process after the September tragedies, most people are trying to analyze the entire situation to find out who is wrong and who is right. While media, politicians, and military leaders endlessly speak about the Taliban, Bin-Laden, Arabs, and Islam, we are making our conclusions based on what we hear. What an average American might assume by watching television and reading newspapers is that Islamic fundamentalism is some kind of mental illness and every Arabic-looking man is a threat to society. Unintentionally, we are about to make the same mistake by discriminating against people as we did with the Germans during World War II†¦show more content†¦Then, he said, â€Å"We are all just one big family on this flight. So, I want you to get know your neighbors. Ask them their names and their country of origin. Then, you folks just let me know if any of you are worried about the person sitting next to you.† I was dumbfounded! What a way to perpetuate the racial stereotypes and prejudice that grew in the wake of the September 11 attacks. I’ve heard of pilots refusing to take an Arab-American passenger, or passengers getting off the flight with Arab-Americans on board, but I had hoped that kind of discrimination was waning. Such behavior is inappropriate in America. Guess I was wrong. (F.05) We are scared and such inexcusable behavior is just our instincts of anger and fear. We think that it is acceptable to violate someone’s civil rights if it would make us, Americans, feel safer. Every political leader in the country says we are not in a war against Islam, but after the September attacks, there were over 400 hate crimes against Muslims or Muslim-Americans, including nine deaths, 90 physical assaults, and 85 incidents of vandalism. Cases include firebombings of Islamic centers and mosques in Chicago, Cleveland and Seattle (Poe A.10). Many Americans have acquired the stereotype of Muslim people as a symbol of danger. â€Å"The stereotyping of Middle-Eastern-looking people has been known since the Crusades in the Middle Ages,† said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic RelationsShow MoreRelatedEssay on The Functions of Stereotypes in Propaganda1220 Words   |  5 PagesThe Functions of Stereotypes in Propaganda A leader with no followers is a guy taking a walk. Good leaders whether it be opinion or political, rarely if ever walk by themselves. The information theydisseminate more often than not leaves them with a hoard of followers that conform to their ideas or cause. The circulated information is known as propaganda. 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One example is American soldiers and the graffiti drawn on their bunks of Japanese soldiers during World War II, which further drove a wedge between Western and Eastern culture. The stereotype carried itself over into the states in the form of Japanese internment camps, and it was not uncommonRead More Stereotyping of Arab Muslims in the New York Times for the Past Forty Years3589 Words   |  15 Pagesmedia theorists say that only under extreme conditions will the negative stereotypes reflect the publics opinions of the portrayed minority group. The parallel theory between propaganda and stereotyping by the mass media is examined. Theorists including Thomson, (1977) Myers, (1992), related to mass media effects strongly agree claiming that repetitive and non-contradictive images in the media ar e an effective form of propaganda. The research samples are random article reviews of the New York Times